On two issues pundits agree: New iPads are on the best way and Apple is unlikely to announce them at a devoted press occasion. Past that, nevertheless, we’ve critical disagreement.
“Sources aware of Apple’s media plans” (as reported by Supercharged) declare that Apple will announce a raft of latest iPad fashions this week. These sources say Tuesday, October 17 is the most certainly date for the disclosing, and that the iPad Air, iPad mini, and Tenth-gen iPad are all in line for a refresh: “The updates will function minor spec bumps, bringing the fashions in keeping with sooner and extra environment friendly chips,” the location predicts, reasonably pessimistically. “The iPad Air will acquire the M2 chip, an improve from the present M1 chip, whereas the upcoming iPad mini will function the A16 Bionic chip.”
This all is sensible. The mini is actually due for an replace, on condition that the final (Sixth-gen) mannequin arrived greater than two years in the past, and the Fifth-gen iPad Air from March 2022 is greater than 18 months previous. The Tenth-gen commonplace iPad got here out only a yr in the past, however Apple’s entry-level machine habitually will get annual updates, whereas the iPad Professionals, which have been additionally up to date final fall, are inclined to observe an extended cycle.
One other supply, nevertheless, begs to vary. Within the newest version of his Energy On e-newsletter, Bloomberg leaker-analyst Mark Gurman insists that new iPads won’t seem this month. He doesn’t supply way more element, aside from to concede that new variations of the three fashions talked about above are in growth (with the replace specializing in “sooner chips”), so it’s doable that they might but seem earlier than Christmas. Notably since Gurman mentions, by the use of distinction, that the iPad Professional replace gained’t occur till 2024.
Nevertheless it occurs, the announcement appears unlikely to be a blockbuster. Our bickering sources, in any case, agree that these can be minor, iterative updates, with no point out of the type of flagship new options about which Apple likes to construct an occasion. (Fixing jelly scrolling on the iPad mini, as Supercharged mentions, actually doesn’t depend.) And the latter web site explicitly predicts that “the bulletins will happen on Apple’s web site and its YouTube channel and won’t embody a flashy hybrid occasion for important product bulletins.”
This yr has been a sluggish one for Apple occasions, with simply two up to now; Apple typically holds a spring occasion, however didn’t trouble in 2023, and infrequently holds a number of fall occasions (it had as many as three in September, October and November 2020) however once more has restricted itself to only the one. The indicators counsel 2023 might find yourself that includes simply two Apple occasions, and the final time Apple was so reticent with the general public was in 2017.
- 2023: 2 Apple occasions (and counting)
- 2022: 3
- 2021: 4
- 2020: 4
- 2019: 3
- 2018: 4
- 2017: 2
- 2016: 4
Whether or not the scarcity of occasions displays a wider conservatism and lack of risk-taking is debatable; actually, it’s most likely extra to do with the quantity of growth and advertising and marketing useful resource being directed in the direction of Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, which doesn’t launch till 2024. But it surely’s actually feeling like this can go down as one of many quieter years in Apple’s historical past.